Dave Collymore, a 34-year-old Jamaican, has been a resident of Japan for the past seven years. He was recruited as an assistant language teacher (ALT) to teach English to elementary school kids in a rural area of Okayama Prefecture, where, it turned out, unsurprisingly, he was the only black person.
His conspicuous difference from the natives and the other, mostly Caucasian ALTs, plus a stint on a local TV show, gave him celebrity status in the area. Everyone knew him, and that made for both a pleasurable yet highly scrutinized life. After three years in the countryside, though, Dave made his way to Yokohama, where he has since become an ALT trainer.
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